Experimental a showcase for Two Punch

The 2001 Experimental Free Handicap highlighted the ability of Northview Stallion Station's Two Punch to sire quality juvenile runners.

Of the 140 2-year-olds weighted this year, Two Punch was represented with a career-best four, which matched Kentucky stallion Carson City for the most on the list. Two Punch also led all sires in fillies on the list, with three of the 64 weighted.

There are restrictions on which 2-year-olds can be weighted on the Experimental. Winning a restricted stakes or a stakes with an added purse of less than $50,000 doesn't qualify a juvenile for a ranking.

Of the five Maryland-breds to appear on the list, only two were stakes winners. All of the Maryland-bred colts who won stakes last year (Magic Weisner, Ride the Tiger, Square Cut Diamond, War Native, and Wooden Stone) and two of the four fillies who won stakes (Friona and True Sensation) were excluded.

The Experimental includes those who finished in the first four in graded and unrestricted races with an added value of $50,000 or more, and top weighted of all Maryland-bred runners was Two Punch's son Heavyweight Champ, at 114 pounds, 12 fewer than highweighted Johannesburg.

A winner of two races, a maiden race and an allowance in New York, Heavyweight Champ ran in graded stakes in his other four starts and finished the year as the leading Maryland-bred money-winning juvenile with $149,258. In his second start he placed third to Buster's Daydream in the Grade 2 Sanford Stakes and followed up with a second to Jump Start in the Grade 2 Saratoga Special. Stretching out in distance in the Grade 1 Champagne, Heavyweight Champ set the pace and finished third to Officer and Jump Start.

Two Punch's topweighted filly, at 104, was the undefeated Virginia-bred Night Breeze, who won two stakes - the Maryland Million Lassie and Toddler - in three starts.

Two Punch was also represented by Maryland-bred Bronze Abe (103), winner of the Heavenly Cause Stakes and three times stakes-placed, including a third in Delaware's Everget Stakes, and Knock Twice (103), a Kentucky-bred who finished second in the Everget.

Leader of the Maryland-bred fillies was undefeated three-time winner Touch Love, a daughter of Northview stallion Not for Love. Touch Love received a weight of 113, 10 pounds below leading filly Tempera. Touch Love won the Grade 2 Schuylerville at Saratoga and Belmont's Astoria.

Ranked at 108 was stakes-placed Lujien Lujien, a daughter of Cozzene bred in Maryland and sold as a 2-year-old at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale for $170,000. She won her first two starts, and finished second in the Miss Grillo Stakes at Belmont Park.

The final Maryland-bred found on the list is Silent Fred (111). A son of Louis Quatorze, he improved as the distances got longer, and in his final start of the year he was third in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct.

Two other Maryland sires with Experimental ranked runners are Northview's Polish Numbers and Green Willow Farms' Meadow Monster.

Roman Dancer (108) and Numbers Man (106), both by Polish Numbers, competed on opposite coasts. New York-bred Roman Dancer won the Sunny Slope Stakes at Santa Anita.

Numbers Man ran in his home state of New Jersey, winning the Morven Stakes and finishing second in the New Jersey Futurity, both at The Meadowlands.

Haunted Lass (107) captured the Everget Stakes to earn her place on the list for freshman sire Meadow Monster.